State of health and undesirable outcomes of people practicing paralympic sports: A prospective cohort study

Abstract

In a general context, a health condition of people dealing with chronic diseases or injuries are better represented by a biopsychosocial model. As a result, they face the impact of these health conditions in their daily lives, experiencing impaired functions and structures of the body, limited activity, and restricted participation. It is believed that adapted sport contributes positively for the presented context. However, participation in sports not only promotes favorable outcomes to health-related states, but also increases the exposure to risk factors that may predict undesirable situations. From this, we aimed to identify the health-related state parameters from people facing disabilities who practice Paralympic sports, exploring disabilities in biopsychosocial domains that could be predictors of undesirable outcomes in sports. We carried out a prospective longitudinal observational design by qualitative and quantitative approach, through interviews and questionnaires, respectively, applied for the coaches and athletes of Paralympic sports linked to a Special Physical Education Training Center, from June to September 2017. Sixty-nine athletes performing 12 sports pointed out causal relations between the self-care and the reported undesirable outcomes, producing theoretical, graphical and numerical results. Our analysis showed that there are causal relationships between one of the explored domains of the health-related states and reported undesirable outcomes, evidencing that good scores reported in self-care by people with disabilities practicing sports may predict undesirable outcomes.